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China is resuming outbound group tourism to destinations including Japan, South Korea, Australia, the US, Germany and Britain, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism said on Thursday.
The release of the third list of destinations follows approvals in January and March this year. The first batch included 20 countries such as Thailand, Russia, Cuba and Argentina, while the second included 40 countries, among them Nepal, France, Portugal, Brazil.
In the first quarter, Chinese tourism agencies recorded 318,600 outbound trips, with Thailand, Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore among the top destinations. Though outbound travel only accounted for 1.58% of the overall tourism market in terms of the number of people who travelled, official figures showed.
Immediately after the announcement, online search volume for outbound travel jumped more than 20-fold on China’s largest online travel agency Trip.com.Â
Outbound travel during the National Day holidays in early October were the most searched, with countries such as Japan, Australia and New Zealand among the most popular destinations, according to Trip.com.
Meanwhile, the platform said it has received a large number of inquiries for overseas travel, over 10 times than daily average inquiries during this summer travel peak season.
In addition, online consultation volume for visa services on Tongcheng Travel has surged by nearly three times from the same time frame one day earlier and consultations for outbound travel products to the destinations have spiked, said online travel agency Tongcheng Travel.Â
Among the new destinations, Turkey, Australia and Japan have been the most popular so far, Tongcheng said.